COLUMN: Single payer health care solution

Copyright: (C) 2007 The Communicator via U-WIRE
Source: Comtex Business

Spokane, Washington, Feb 26, 2007 (The Communicator, U-WIRE via COMTEX) --A few things that you can count on: The 2008 presidential elections will deliver the first African-American or female candidate to win either party's primary. The defining issue will be the ongoing conflict in Iraq. The rest of the debate will be about the standard hot button issues that we always hear; abortion, gay rights, gun control, flag burning. Another thing that you can count on is the total absence of what I consider to be a much more pressing issue than whether or not burning the flag is illegal. Health care reform: we need it in the worst way.

This is a debate that will not breach either candidate's lips, but it's one that they should be having. The goal is Universal Healthcare, by that I mean everybody in America can get the medical treatment they need without going bankrupt. I am talking about getting rid of medical insurance, getting rid of HMOs and making the medical industry's goal to promote wellness, not make money. It's so basic a necessity that I can't believe we don't have it. Any civilized society, any society that is worth its salt takes care of their sick.

The way we operate right now, anybody can go into an emergency room with a bleeding head and get treated, that is true. Assuming the patient doesn't stay more than one night, between the ambulance ride to the hospital and the cost of the doctor, when they get released the hospital slams a bill at their door for $20,000, at least. And if that patient has no insurance, unless they are dying in the hospital parking lot, they will get bumped, kicked out and denied treatment. What kind of culture does that?

Single Payer Healthcare (SPH).

It's not Socialized medicine, because we don't need the government running the healthcare industry, they would thoroughly screw it up. What happens with SPH is the government picks up the check. Everybody pays their taxes, the government pays for the medicine. No more medical insurance, everybody is already covered. It would be like the roads, the government takes taxes from your paycheck, they pay for the road maintenance, everybody gets to use the roads, solved. Let me lay down some truth; Half of all bankruptcies are caused by medical bills. 46 million Americans do not have health coverage.

Insurance bureaucracies consume 31 percent of every healthcare dollar, which means a single payer system would save the United States $350 billion every year. We are already paying the highest medical taxes in the world, we in fact pay for universal healthcare, we just don't get it. Critics say the with a SPH system that the quality of healthcare would go down, that Canadians, who have a single payer system, are constantly jumping the border to get at our sweet capitalist healthcare. I have a hard time believing that. We are one of the last industrialized nations to not have some form of a single payer healthcare. If it doesn't work, why aren't we experiencing a flood of European citizens coming to America to use our healthcare system?

The fact is that opponents of a SPH system do not have the silent majority's interest at heart. Insurance is Big Business in America, and they don't want to lose money. The quality of medicine would be the exact same, except it would all be government funded, instead of charging a common person $800 for an ambulance ride, or $40 for an aspirin. This is something that affects all of us in a very real way. I urge you to look into it, perhaps then we could make our voices heard in the coming election, and get candidates to support a policy that really matters.

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